Denison presents his material in three one-act plays with four to six characters, and in one four-act play with fourteen characters. It is the business of the dramatic critic to estimate Denison’s success in dramaturgy, to determine whether they are well-constructed and actable plays. On the strictly literary side, his plays in _The Unheroic North_, despite their sordid or vulgarized characters, and despite the sections of society and life presented in them, intrigue the attention and make interesting and diverting reading. As satires on the methods and ideals of certain Canadian romantic fictionists, on the social life at least of certain Canadian communities Denison’s realistic dramas are a significant beginning of creative Stage Drama in Canada. Part III. Special and Miscellaneous Literature (1760-1924) CHAPTER XXV _The_ War Poetry _of_ Canada MRS. MOODIE—ANNIE ROTHWELL CHRISTIE—ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD— JOHN MCCRAE—CANADIAN POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR. I. THE POETRY OF THE CIVIL REBELLION AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR It is a literary phenomenon by itself that the best or most popular of the inspirational and the commemorative war verse by permanently resident _émigrés_ or native-born Canadians was the work of the country’s women poets. No samples of martial verse inspired by the War of 1812-14 seem to be extant. The records of martial verse produced in Canada begin with the Civil War of 1837-38 and the inspirational war lyrics of Mrs. Susanna Moodie. Fifteen years after the war opened, Mrs. Moodie’s martial lyrics were published in her _Roughing It In The Bush_ (1852, two vols.). In ‘The Advertisement’ (which is a sort of publisher’s Preface) to this work, the publisher recounts the origin and effect of Mrs. Moodie’s inspirational war verse. ‘During the rebellion,’ he says, ‘her loyal lyrics, prompted by strong affection for her native country [England], were circulated and sung throughout the colony [Ontario], and produced a great effect in rousing an enthusiastic feeling in favor of public order.’ But Mrs. Moodie herself modestly remarks (_op. cit. sup._, Vol. 2):— I must own that my British spirit was fairly aroused, and as I could not aid in subduing the enemies of my beloved country with my arm, I did what little I could to serve the good cause with my pen. It may probably amuse my readers, to give them a few specimens of these loyal staves, which were widely circulated through the colony at the time. It will suffice to quote the first and last stanzas of her _Address to the Freemen of Canada_ (_op. cit. sup._, p. 191) in order to show that Mrs. Moodie wrote no mediocre martial verse of the inspirational type:—